Abortion survivor struggled with his self-worth until he realized ‘how much God loved me’

Abortion survivor Josiah Presley, in the lineup of March for Life 2025 speakers, is a pro-life advocate, husband, father, and pastor. In his speech at the March, Presley stated, “When I was unseen and devalued, my God had a different plan,” referencing the impact of the Gospel — and of Psalm 139 — on his life.

Josiah Presley's Full Speech at 2025 March for Life

Presley’s story began in 1995 in South Korea where a young mother and her boyfriend, already parents of a four-year-old daughter, discovered they were pregnant with their second child. They made the decision to have a first-trimester abortion known as a D&C, or dilatation and curettage, at two months gestation. In a D&C, powerful suction dismembers the tiny body of the preborn baby in the womb. 

1st Trimester Abortion | Suction Dilation and Curettage (D&C) | What is Abortion?

But Presley survived — and his mother, discovering he was still alive at about five months of pregnancy — carried him to term and then placed him into the foster care system. At 13 months old, he was adopted by a Christian couple from Oklahoma in the United States. Presley was born with a partially formed left arm, but it is uncertain if this was caused by the abortion he survived. 

In his testimony, Presley said he struggled with his self-image and self-worth because of his arm, and later, to an even greater extent after learning that his birth mother had tried to abort him. He told Live Action News that he had even considered suicide at one time. Later, though dealing with anger over what his birth parents had done, he chose to forgive them, realizing “how much love had been poured upon” his life by God and by his adoptive parents. His adoptive parents went on to adopt a total of 10 children in addition to their two biological children, and Presley has since gone on to become a husband, father, and youth pastor in Oklahoma.

While Presley was new to his Christian faith, he found immense solace in reading Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made… My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.” This passage goes on to praise God for His all-knowing and all-powerful attributes.

For Presley, this meant that his life had value and purpose despite his physical deformity and the rejection from his birth mother. 

He told Life Institute, “I realized how much God loved me. But I also realized that not only am I important to God, not only does God care about and love me; but every baby is important to God, every baby is cared about by God, every baby is loved by God, from the moment of conception….”

A Conversation Like No Other: Abortion Survivors & Abortion Providers Speak Face to Face

Recently, Presley was featured in Live Action’s Face to Face video series, featuring interactions between abortion survivors, abortionists, and mothers who chose abortion and now regret it. In a response to former abortionist Dr. Haywood Robinson, Presley profoundly reflected that the “Gospel is not about our worthiness,” or any other possible trait, ability, or thing we could possess, but rather about “the value our Creator assigns to us.” 

He went on to say, “As that Gospel changed my life, I found redemption through that, but it’s also the heart of even what we’re talking about right now, right? That the unborn, every human life, has value not because of what we think they’ll accomplish, not because of their physical capabilities, or their mental capabilities, or what socioeconomic status they’ll even be born into. Their value is rooted in a creator who’s created them in His image and who assigns value on their life and has proven that value time and time again — ultimately through sending Jesus for us.”